have learned that president obama will speak about the fiscal cliff at 1:30 p.m. eastern time. with all that happening, let's get right to our daily fix. nbc's kelly o'donnell on capitol hill, nbc's kristen welker at the white house, and jonathan capehart, washington post editorial writer and my colleague and an msnbc contributor. okay, kelly. the action is on the hill where it's been for the last few days. let's start with you. this is a fast-moving story. give us the latest perimeters of what appears -- i emphasize appears to be the start of a deal. >> well, it has been coming closer together, so we are told. the question is what will the president be saying, and senior advisors here as well as senators i've spoken to say they do not expect that he is making any nounment of a deal, so we'll wait for the white house to determine that for sure. what we've been hearing is that they have moved off the issue of taxes and have been more focused on the nature of spending cuts. with republicans and democrats in two different places. democrats would like to delay the aut